Nuts and Nutcrackers

Charles James Lever

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• Publié par: fawyong
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nuts and Nutcrackers, by Charles James Lever
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Title: Nuts and Nutcrackers
Author: Charles James Lever
Illustrator: Phiz.
Release Date: March 18, 2010 [EBook #31685]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NUTS AND NUTCRACKERS ***
Produced by Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)NUTS AND NUTCRACKERS.
“The world’s my filbert which with my
crackers I will open.”
SHAKSPEARE.
“The priest calls the lawyer a cheat,
And the lawyer beknaves the divine;
And the statesman, because he’s so
great,
Thinks his trade’s as honest as mine.”
BEGGAR’S OPERA.
“Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them
cheaters,)Whose shells do keep their kernels from
the eaters;
Open the shells, and you shall have the
meat:
They here are brought for you to crack
and eat.”
JOHN BUNYAN.
I L L U S T R A T E D B Y “ P H I Z . ”
Second Edition.
LONDON:
Wm. S. ORR AND Co., PATERNOSTER ROW;
WILLIAM CURRY, Jun., AND Co., DUBLIN.
MDCCCXLV.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
PAGE
AN OPENING NUT vii
A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS 1
A NUT FOR CORONERS 15
A NUT FOR “TOURISTS” 19
A NUT FOR LEGAL FUNCTIONARIES 22
A NUT FOR “ENDURING AFFECTION” 31
A NUT FOR THE POLICE AND SIR PETER 37
A NUT FOR THE BUDGET 44
A NUT FOR REPEAL 49
A NUT FOR NATIONAL PRIDE 55
A NUT FOR DIPLOMATISTS 64
A NUT FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL 71
A NUT FOR DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 77
A NUT FOR LADIES BOUNTIFUL 82
A NUT FOR THE PRIESTS 85
A NUT FOR LEARNED SOCIETIES 87
A NUT FOR THE LAWYERS 92
A NUT FOR THE IRISH 99
A NUT FOR VICEREGAL PRIVILEGES 102RICH AND POOR—POUR ET CONTRE 109
A NUT FOR ST. PATRICK’S NIGHT 114
A NUT FOR “GENTLEMAN JOCKS” 119
A NUT FOR YOUNGER SONS 123
A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE 128
A NUT FOR THE OLD 131
A NUT FOR THE ART UNION 133
A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY 137
A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS 141
A NUT FOR THE ARCHITECTS 145
A NUT FOR A NEW COLONY 148
A “SWEET” NUT FOR THE YANKEES 153
A NUT FOR THE SEASON—JULLIEN’S QUADRILLES 157
A NUT FOR “ALL IRELAND” 163
A NUT FOR “A NEW COMPANY” 168
A NUT FOR “THE POLITICAL ECONOMISTS” 175
A NUT FOR “GRAND DUKES” 180
A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS 183
A FILBERT FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL 185
“THE INCOME TAX” 186
A NUT FOR THE “BELGES” 189
A NUT FOR WORKHOUSE CHAPLAINS 192
A NUT FOR THE “HOUSE” 197
A NUT FOR “LAW REFORM” 200
A NUT FOR “CLIMBING BOYS” 203
A NUT FOR “THE SUBDIVISION OF LABOUR” 206
A NUT FOR A “NEW VERDICT” 212
A NUT FOR THE REAL “LIBERATOR” 216
A NUT FOR “HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS” 221
A NUT FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT
225COMMISSION
A NUT FOR THE HUMANE SOCIETY 228[ 1 ]
A NUT FOR MEN OF GENIUS.
F Providence, instead of a vagabond, had made me a justice of theIpeace, there is no species of penalty I would not have enforced
against a class of offenders, upon whom it is the perverted taste of
[ 2 ]the day to bestow wealth, praise, honour, and reputation; in a word,
upon that portion of the writers for our periodical literature whose
pastime it is by high-flown and exaggerated pictures of society,
places, and amusements, to mislead the too credulous and believing
world; who, in the search for information and instruction, are but
reaping a barren harvest of deceit and illusion.
Every one is loud and energetic in his condemnation of a bubble
speculation; every one is severe upon the dishonest features of
bankruptcy, and the demerits of un-trusty guardianship; but while the
law visits these with its pains and penalties, and while heavy
inflictions follow on those breaches of trust, which affect our pocket,
yet can he “walk scatheless,” with port erect and visage high who, for
mere amusement—for the passing pleasure of the moment—or,
baser still, for certain pounds per sheet, can, present us with the air-
drawn daggers of a dyspeptic imagination for the real woes of life, or
paint the most common-place and tiresome subjects with colours so
vivid and so glowing as to persuade the unwary reader that a
paradise of pleasure and enjoyment, hitherto unknown, is open
before him. The treadmill and the ducking-stool, “me judice,” would
no longer be tenanted by rambling gipsies or convivial rioters, but
would display to the admiring gaze of an assembled multitude the
aristocratic features of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the dark whiskers of
D’Israeli, the long and graceful proportions of Hamilton Maxwell, orD’Israeli, the long and graceful proportions of Hamilton Maxwell, or
the portly paunch and melo-dramatic frown of that right pleasant
fellow, Henry Addison himself.
You cannot open a newspaper without meeting some narrative of
what, in the phrase of the day, is denominated an “attempted
[ 3 ]imposition.” Count Skryznyzk, with black moustachoes and a beard to
match, after being the lion of Lord Dudley Stuart’s parties, and the
delight of a certain set of people in the West-end—who, when they
give a tea-party, call it a soirée, and deem it necessary to have either
a Hindoo or a Hottentot, a Pole, or a Piano-player, to interest their
guests—was lately brought up before Sir Peter Laurie, charged by
964 with obtaining money under false pretences, and sentenced to
three months’ imprisonment and hard labour at the treadmill.
The charge looks a grave one, good reader, and perhaps already
some notion is trotting through your head about forgery or
embezzlement; you think of widows rendered desolate, or orphans
defrauded; you lament over the hard-earned pittance of persevering
industry lost to its possessor; and, in your heart, you acknowledge
that there may have been some cause for the partition of Poland, and
that the Emperor of the Russias, like another monarch, may not be
half so black as he is painted. But spare your honest indignation; our
unpronounceable friend did none of these. No; the head and front of
his offending was simply exciting the sympathies of a feeling world
for his own deep wrongs; for the fate of his father, beheaded in the
Grand Place at Warsaw; for his four brothers, doomed never to see
the sun in the dark mines of Tobolsk; for his beautiful sister, reared in
the lap of luxury and wealth, wandering houseless and an outcast
around the palaces of St. Petersburg, wearying heaven itself with
cries for mercy on her banished brethren; and last of all, for himself—
he, who at the battle of Pultowa led heaven-knows how many and
how terrific charges of cavalry,—whose breast was a galaxy of orders
[ 4 ]only outnumbered by his wounds—that he should be an exile,
without friends, and without home! In a word, by a beautiful and
highly-wrought narrative, that drew tears from the lady and ten
shillings from the gentleman of the house, he became amenable to
our law as a swindler and an impostor, simply because his narrative
was a fiction.
In the name of all justice, in the name of truth, of honesty, and fair
dealing, I ask you, is this right? or, if the treadmill be the fit reward for
such powers as his, what shall we say, what shall we do, with all the
popular writers of the day? How many of Bulwer’s stories are facts?
What truth is there in James? Is that beautiful creation of Dickens,
“Poor Nell,” a real or a fictitious character? And is the offence, after
all, merely in the manner, and not the matter, of the transgression? Is
it that, instead of coming before the world printed, puffed, and hot-
pressed by the gentlemen of the Row, he ventured to edite himself,
and, instead of the trade, make his tongue the medium of publication?
And yet, if speech be the crime, what say you to Macready, and with
what punishment are you prepared to visit him who makes your heart-
strings vibrate to the sorrows of Virginius, or thrills your very blood
with the malignant vengeance of Iago? Is what is permissible in
Covent Garden, criminal in the city? or, stranger still, is there a
punishment at the one place, and praise at the other? Or is it the
costume, the foot-lights, the orange-peel, and the sawdust—are they
the terms of the immunity? Alas, and alas! I believe they are.Burke said, “The age of chivalry is o’er;” and I believe the age of
[ 5 ]poetry has gone with it; and if Homer himself were to chant an Iliad
down Fleet Street, I’d wager a crown that 964 would take him up for a
ballad-singer.
But a late case occurs to me. A countryman of mine, one Bernard
Cavanagh, doubtless, a gent